Warning: Spoilers will be included in this blog post, as it's kind of hard to talk about the ending without mentioning spoilers, so for all you potential readers who haven't played the game yet, you've been warned. I'm going into spoiler territory, yeah, good stuff...For people who haven't played it or finished it and want an opinion on the overall game, check out my review: http://www.ign.com/blogs/rkownage/2012/03/15/mass-effect-3-review/

So the ending to Mass Effect 3 pissed off a lot of people huh, and they bitched about it on the internet? No kidding, I've never heard of that happening before. But in all seriousness, I SEE where everyone is coming from, and I can empathize with all of them. The ending to this game felt rushed, it felt incomplete and it felt like a downright insult to the people who became so heavily invested in Bioware's epic SciFi trilogy. I am disappointed myself, but the last thing I am going to do is trash Bioware, because even though the ending sucked, and yes, I felt like I had invested all of these hours to be heavily disappointed in the end, they shipped the game with this ending, this is how they wanted the trilogy to end...or is it?

Here are some problems I have with the ending:

I felt like the choices I made throughout Mass Effect's trilogy had no bearing on the ending: And the truth of that is, they didn't. The only thing that affects the ending is your Effective Military strength, and that really depends on things you do throughout the ME3 singleplayer, and if you decide to do Multiplayer, you can boost your readiness which makes your strength go up. So really, that's all you need to focus on to not "fail" at the end of the game. Regardless of your EMS or GR, the game has three basic endings. 1. Control the Reapers, 2. Destroy the Reapers, or 3. Synthesize with the Reapers, rewriting all lifeforms. Uh. Yeah? No matter what choices you make in Mass Effect 1, 2, or 3, you will be presented with these 3 choices, then based on your EMS, you either fail or succeed. But that's it...Not very fulfilling, not very exciting, a letdown, to say the least. The only real difference in the ending is the color of the Mass Relay explosions. Yes, you read that right, you want blue, green, or red? Then pick the right choice, asshole! yeah...

Mass Relay issue: No matter what ending you choose, the Mass Relays in every cluster will be destroyed. K. Well, uh, then that's bad. See, we're running into plot issues here. Did anyone play The Arrival DLC for Mass Effect 2. Rememeber what happened to the Mass Relay there? It was destroyed, and the explosion from that completely destroyed the star system. Regardless of which of the 3 choices you select for the ending, the Mass Relays are destroyed, so, my question is: If the Mass Relays blow up, what happens to the Star Systems in which they belong? If we're following the story and based on The Arrival DLC, every star system should have been destroyed. So much for saving everyone's life, you just committed the biggest genocide ever! Grats, here's your loot.

Normandy escapes...wait, what?: Yes, the Normandy escapes. While this would make most people happy, let's consider the circumstances here. There is a giant space battle going on all throughout your mission on Earth, and Joker is not the type of coward pilot to abandon the battle because he feels uneasy about what's going on. Worse yet, the Normandy crash lands on a jungle planet and you see members of your crew, the same crew you made an awesome speech to, on Earth, depart from the wreckage, scratch free. In my ending, Liara, who was part of my team as we ran towards the beam, and were attacked by Harbinger, departs the Normandy wreckage...without so much as a scratch. This just doesn't make sense. That means Joker was able to get to Earth, extract your crew, and take off before everything went to shit. I just don't see how that happens and it makes no sense. It seems it was done to give you the satisfaction of knowing your favorites survived, but ends up adding more mystery than it does excite gamers.

The Child AI who created the Reapers, lives on the citadel?: Uh, wtf is that? This whole time it's revealed that an AI created the Reapers, because every cycle, they come and wipe out life to fix all it's issues, or something like that? It seems stupid, and kind of contradicts the whole point of ME1. Sovereign remained in this galaxy to monitor life and report back to the Reapers...why would that be needed if the damn creator of the Reapers was present this whole time? And why did it take the form of the child from Shepard's nightmare? It doesn't make sense, none of this part does. In fact, aside from the disappointing end of the Illusive Man, this is where the ending just turns to shit. Don't like it, one bit.

Thanks for playing the game, stay tuned for more DLC!: REALLY? You just gave me a very disappointing ending, and I am wondering what I paid $60 for, and then you hit me with a message that says...Thanks for playing, want to know more, stay tuned for more DLC. You can pay us more money to find out more about the game that just disappointed the ever loving shit out of you. Uh. Yeah, that's just the message I want to see right as I end the game. Un-freakin-believable. I was so disgusted to see such a blatant attempt at selling something in my life. Terrible Terrible, again, I blame EA.

Those are my main problems with the game's ending, but like I said, I am not childish to the point where I am going to blast Bioware and tell them what failures they are. This is the ending that they choose to go with. Now what WILL piss me off is if they come out with an alternate ending, but make us pay for it. I think that'd be a little bit of a slap in the face. You say you listen to your fans and you say their voices matter, but when you do something universally requested by them, and then CHARGE them for it, that's just wrong. I blame EA...but w/e.

Other issues I have is with Day 1 DLC. I just don't like it. I don't like the idea that you finished something before the release of the game, but decided you'd withhold it from the release of the actual game and charge customers for it. Granted, it was included for free for the Collector's Edition, but it did cost $79.99, so you pretty much paid for it anyways. I just think releasing additional content the SAME day as you release a game for MORE money is a slap in the face to hard working people who buy your game and look forward to playing it. Want an additional character the day you start your ME3 adventure, then sure, go ahead and spend $10 on this content. Thank you for not including it on the disc, because that would have REALLY set me off. I hate that more than anything going on currently. But Day 1 DLC feels like a blatant attempt to make people spend more money on something that should have been included in the original game to begin with. What bothers me as well is it was DONE well before the game's release. So why not release it with the game? They want more money, simple enough.

I've done enough ranting, I am NOT mad, I am disappointed, overall. I love the Mass Effect Trilogy, all three of the games are great examples of storytelling, right up until the very end. Bioware is known for it's fantastic storytelling, engaging characters and very RPG influenced gameplay, and I love the games they put out. It's a frustrating situation for fans of the game who expected something more, something of better quality, and something to make you feel like the 100+ hours you spent controlling Commander Shepard and his/her quest to save humanity were totally worth it. I don't EXPECT Bioware to do anything, maybe take note of this, and use it as a reminder the next time they work on a game series, I don't know. I can say thank you for the overall quality of your titles and I look forward to playing more, but maybe next time I won't get as emotionally involved as I did with Mass Effect.